


Ratchet Week - Duty/Desire

by not_whelmed_yet



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Afterlife, Dialogue Heavy, Just Soft Feelings, M/M, Post-Canon, not terribly theological, psychopomp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24358240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_whelmed_yet/pseuds/not_whelmed_yet
Summary: Censere and Ratchet get to meet, someday, and they talk about the duties they've held to the dead and the dying.
Relationships: Censere/Rung, Drift/Ratchet (mentioned)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67
Collections: Lynn's Flashfiction & Oneshots





	Ratchet Week - Duty/Desire

**Author's Note:**

> For Ratchet Week I'm trying to write fics is an hour or less. This one was 😅 about two minutes over. It's not very focused, but it's a pair of characters I'd always wanted to see together. They just seem like they'd have so much to say to each other.
> 
> I'm sorry I keep starting more short fics rather than updating any of my WIPs. I keep meaning to but...quarantine brain disagrees.
> 
> [Check out all the amazing ratchet week art on twitter!](https://twitter.com/rattylovefest)

“So now that you’ve remembered...do you prefer Censere? Mortilus seems like a pretty grandiose name.”

The god of death smiled. They’d never met in life, but Ratchet had recognized him immediately from Rewind’s documentary on the Necrobot. He even had the starry cloak. “I’ve grown accustomed to Censere; the habits of life seem hard to shake, even here.”

Distant stars pulsed with light and song and Ratchet knew that if he looked down there would be nothing beneath them. It was uncanny and he was glad to have Censere’s hand to anchor him. “So you’ve still got work to do, even now that you’re dead? Seems unfair if the rest of us just get to…” Ratchet waved his hand towards the end of the path Censere had been leading him down. “...whatever it is people do in the Afterspark.”

“I enjoy having a purpose,” Censere said. “I always have. Even when I did not know I was, I was still seeking my duties. I’d thought you might understand that.”

“Me?” Ratchet didn’t know what to do with his free hand and ended up hooking it self-consciously into his hip plating. “We’ve never met, unless I’ve forgotten - ”

Censere shook his head. “Don’t worry, you haven’t forgotten anything. We’ve never met, but I’ve led many sparks whose last memories were of you. In my youth I cared a great deal about guilt and blame, but when I passed over I learned the dying care more about having someone to hold their hand and assure them they aren’t alone. And you were that someone to so many.”

“I failed those people,” Ratchet said, even as he saw the familiar flint in Censere’s optics. Drift had gotten like that when Ratchet tried to explain this. “I know there wasn’t a way to save some of them, but saving them was my job.”

“And if saving them was impossible, you failed in your duties?” Censere asked, with all the lightness of that therapist Ratchet had tried seeing and given up on two sessions in.

“I’ve done the impossible before.”

“And thus you should be able to do it on command?” Censere paused and turned to lay one hand on Ratchet’s shoulder. “Many find that death is an opportunity to lay aside the burdens they’d carried in life, Ratchet. I would grant you that gift, if I could.”

“I’ve never been good at letting go,” Ratchet admitted.

Censere smiled. “Ah, that I can understand. If I may tell you a secret? I believe that I could step over the edge of this path and join the Afterspark. There is no barrier to hold me back and the sparks that walk this path had made their way before I came here. I’m simply not ready to pass through and have invented a reason to justify it.”

“Well I’m glad you’re here.” Ratchet said. It seemed too honest a thing to say, even here, so he hedged, “and not some sanctimonious god with a bone to pick about my lifelong atheism.”

“It hardly seems appropriate to judge,” Censere said. “I was never sure myself and it turns out that I _was_ a god. Expecting more from anyone else seems absurd.”

“I guess,” Ratchet said. “Do you know if...do you know what’s beyond the end of the path? Will I still be _me_?”

“I do not know,” Censere said. “Would you want it so?”

“I just...there’s someone I want to see again.”

“Young love,” Censere said with a smile. “I understand.”

“I’m hardly young,” Ratchet protested.

“You are to me.” And maybe that was fair, the guy had lived through the entirety of Cybertronian history, even if he hadn’t remembered that before he died. “But if you wish to stay awhile, I wouldn’t mind the company. I’ve heard more than enough recommendations of your credentials at the skills that matter here.”

Ratchet laughed. “I think you’re the first person ever to talk up my bedside manner.”

“Like I said, I’ve heard many people do just that. Perhaps you only let yourself be open with the people you knew would never tell your secrets,” Censere said. “It is a long walk and you’ll have time to think. There is no rush.”

“Are you lonely here?” Ratchet asked. Pretended he wasn’t grasping for an excuse to stay.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Censere said. “But I understand wanting to pass through with someone at your side.” He smiled again, softer this time and Ratchet finally got it. He might have been a bit slow on picking up social clues sometimes but nobody was going to miss a tell _that_ obvious.

“I didn’t know you had a partner,” he said.

“Neither did I! I forgot him right along with my name, but he’s never blamed me for it. He showed up not long after I did and apparently he _can’t_ pass over. Makes sense that someone has to stick around to turn the lights out, so to speak, and if it were going to be anyone it would be him.”

“Wait, are you implying - ”

Censere waved and a mech stepped out from between the stars with a smile on his face that seemed more luminous than any of them. The mech was short, and orange, and was wearing round spectacles and Ratchet knew them. Knew them as clearly as he’d not known them a moment before.

“Rung!” He let go of Censere and was untethered for a moment as he reached for his old friend. Rung had always been so formal in life, but apparently that had been washed away in death, because he ignored Ratchet’s outstretched hand to wrap him in the tightest hug. “Oh my god, I cannot believe I forgot you - and that I forgot you were - I’m so sorry.”

Rung laughed. “Ratchet. It is so, so good to see you again, old friend. Don’t even think of it, I was asking the impossible of you. And I know, I know, you expect the impossible of yourself. I don’t.”

When at last they pulled away Ratchet felt something warm in his chest, where his spark should have been. Not that this was a real body, it was metaphysical or whatever. But it felt real. “So you and Censere?” He asked.

“Me and Censere,” Rung agreed. “You and Drift, I take it?”

“Yeah,” he managed.

Ratchet must have had a stupid look on his face, because Rung smiled sappily at him. “I’m so glad,” he said. “Will you be staying awhile, then?” Like he was a neighbor inviting Ratchet in for a quick drink out on the balcony. Like he wasn’t Primus. Ratchet wondered if he’d always been like this, or if it was a lifetime living as a mere mortal that had made Rung so kind.

“Yeah, I think so,” Ratchet said. “Censere tells me I could have a place here for a while. I’ve missed having work that needed me.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always with my one-day ficlets, there's probably typos and grammar things I missed (feel free to point me at any mistakes you notice)
> 
> And as always, I love comments and you can find me online @notwhelmedyet. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed 💕


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